A Better Man
by wikiaddicted723
Summary: In the aftermath of chaos, Peter wishes that the decisions he has made have been the right ones, even if they hurt. Future Fic of what could be, therefore Hypothetical an potentially AU. R&R please.


He wakes up naked and alone, the empty space of soft, wrinkled hotel sheets on his side where he's sure another body should be, pressed tightly against his own, giving him a sense of coldness that chills him to the bone, and has nothing to do with the weather. He struggles with his fuzzy, sleep – addled mind for a few seconds before he remembers how he got here, suddenly aware of the way his wounded shoulder and the burns on his arms, his chest, that must have all been bandaged as he slept, plague his sore body with an ache that runs deeper than that of simple injuries of the flesh.

A soft sigh catches his ear, somewhere off to his left; he turns his head towards the sound and lets out a shaky, fearful breath he didn't know he'd been holding in relief.

There she stands, her pale skin ethereal in the ambient light coming through the darkness of the window she leans against, her posture tired, as if she held the weight of the worlds on her shoulders (he thinks it might as well be the truth; with all they've seen, all they've done, he's not so sure it would surprise him. Again.)

She hugs herself, her green stare piercing through him as only her eyes have ever been able to do, a soft, small smile tugging at her lips when her irises connect with his; _I'm here_, she seems to say, his eyes telling her of his fears, his insecurities that so perfectly reflect her own. And then the moment is gone and she lowers her eyes before turning her head to look out the window, her gaze distant, detached as she retreats into her personal sanctuary of solitude. He doesn't hold it against her, understands her even, realizes that she needs her space, he has always known.

He wonders if his mother somehow felt, so many years ago, deep in her bones, what his so called "destiny" held for him.

_Na einai kalyteros anthropos apo ton patera toy_

The words burn him worse than any machine could have, leave a brand on the back of his skull, scald the straining tissue of his heart with the decisions he's made, but as he lets his gaze linger on the form of the bare woman leaning against the window he knows he has chosen right.

He allows himself to close his eyes for a moment, and he remembers.

* * *

He was here. He was here, in her arms, and he was real. He was not going anywhere, and she wasn't letting go.

It is all she can think about, the sensations of him permeating the very air she breathes as he leans his bruised body against hers weakly, his back against the hotel room's door, the New York City lights their only illumination as they pour in through the crystal around them, outlining their shapes in pale halos of tenuous wavelengths.

She knows there are tears in her eyes, moist tracks adorning her face, and her palms against the warm, wet stubble of his cheeks tell her that if she were to open her eyes and _look_ she'd find him in the same sorry state.

She doesn't want to be sorry; she finds nothing worth regretting about this moment, or all other moments before it. Tonight she is proud of her choices, for all have led her here, with him. After _that_, she has found, having succeeded in saving universes is naught but an added bonus. She is proud for not letting the heartache of missed chances, what ifs, and could bes diminish her love for him, and finds her heart beating erratically at the thought that _his_ choices have led him to her. She only wishes it wouldn't be so painful to know what he's forsaken to be here, hopes to have the time to give him enough of her that he won't regret it.

But as she thinks this and opens her eyes the look he gives her serves to dispel her doubts into oblivion (as if he had known what she was thinking. They've always been weird like that, _synchronized_ in Bell's words), for he stares at her with such intensity as she has never experienced, his eyes red, slightly swollen and obscured by the shifting lights of the world they've managed to hold on the outside, and yet his irises remain the same unfathomable blue, rimming pupils wide with inky black that threaten to swallow her whole if she reaches too closely. She wants to drown in them.

In their minds there is nothing but this room, its walls encasing the only world they want to know, there in each other, and that is enough.

She takes him by the hand then, leading him to the bed at the other end of the room, echoing the night they'd finally come together after months of hardships and pain. She has an unbearable urge to feel him, touch him, taste him, breathe him, know that he's real and there. Her mind has played tricks on her before, and a nagging voice in her head drives her to make sure that she's not dreaming, somehow imagining all this in some twisted, cosmic joke; if it is a dream, it is one she doesn't want to wake from, she doesn't want to wake up alone in a hospital bed and realize that all she did was in vain (she really isn't as selfless as everyone seems to see her), that she'll never get to experience the future they fought so hard to give others.

So she seeks him out and he lets himself be found as they peel layer after layer of the offending garments that separate them, hold them from feeling each other completely, skin against skin, heartbeat to heartbeat.

She makes it her task to learn him all over again, traces her fingers over his raw, blood covered shapes and feels him shiver against her (she wonders how much of his reaction is her doing and how much is the aftershock of the damage done to him, as his body goes through the stages of the fever that starts to settle in), caresses every scratch, kisses every burn the machine left on him that now mars his body forever, standing out as angry, red patches of skin strewn irregularly across his forearms and the backs of his hands, and sparse spots on his chest where hair will never grow again, tastes the salt and the blood on his skin mixed with a flavor that remains uniquely his.

She swallows a moan as she feels his own hands returning the favor, skimming through her body softly, as if she were breakable (she wants to laugh at the notion, because for the first time in a long time she _feels_ breakable. She's not yet sure it's such a good thing), because she cannot bear to break the comfortable silence in the room; but then he brings his hands to her face, brushing softly against her cheeks, her lips, her closed eyelids, before he weaves his fingers into her hair and brings his lips to her own in a searing kiss that has her whimpering and melting around him, clutching him to her until there's not a hair's breadth between them and she can feel the rippling of his body as it moves against her own, slick with sweat and the effort to hold himself upright through the pleasure and the pain that course through him in equal measure, the endorphins running through his veins the only reason he's still standing.

She needs this, maybe just as much as he does, he sees it in her eyes, feels it in the way she clings to him like a lifeline and he doesn't want to disappoint her, wants to feel her around him, meld himself to her, make sure that she's real just as much as she does, and there's this love and this want in him that threaten to rip him apart if he doesn't show her how important she is to him, to be able to have her here with him against all odds. He needs to feel like he's worth her, like he can be man enough to last her a lifetime, or ten.

She can feel his body shake on his feet, the tremors increasing in tempo with every passing second, his hands in her hair tremble violently and she can see the effort he's making in holding himself upright through the pain, to not fall down and drag her with him. She takes his hands in her own, worry creasing her forehead in a frown as she weaves her fingers through his in reassurance, turning them around and pushing him to sit at the edge of the bed. He looks pained, ashamed, as if he's somehow failed her in doing this and she's desperate to tell him, somehow, that it doesn't matter. She brings his still trembling hands to her lips and peppers kisses on the angry welts that cover them, trying to convey her emotions with actions, not trusting herself to speak through the lump that has suddenly formed in her throat at the way he's looking at her. She kisses him softly, yet intensely, the emotional turmoil in her evident as she brings herself to straddle him, being careful not to hurt him as she places his hands on her waist, her own making themselves at home in his hair and neck. He grabs her firmly, his forehead pressed solidly against the crook of her neck as he grazes her neck in soft, insistent bites designed to drive her crazy, determined to participate as much as he physically can in this. He stifles a groan when she grinds herself against him, his hips bucking up on instinct before he can refrain himself; she doesn't want him to.

"Shhh," she murmurs into his ear, her cheek against his, relishing the feel of his roughness against her, "It's ok."

She grabs his face in her hands and looks at him seriously, "let me do this," she says into the quiet stillness of the room, only disturbed by their strained breathing and the heat of their bodies, "let me make love to you."

He's half –inclined to laugh just then, because that should be _his_ line, chauvinistic as it may be (he usually doesn't mind having her in charge), the beginnings of a grin grazing his face, a bit of his old, personal spark growing in the pools of his eyes, making her heart leap. She hadn't realized how much she missed this side of him, but then his smile disappears and is replaced by a grimace of self – loathing and impotence, his eyes begging her forgiveness for a fault he has not committed.

"I'm sor –," he begins, his voice turning into a moan when she decides an apology is the last thing she wants to hear from him and shuts him up by finally joining their bodies, allowing herself a moment to accommodate him before she starts a slow, steady rhythm against him, not wanting to overwhelm him. He shuts his overactive mind off, never having been able to deny her anything, letting his body and the instincts written on the Y portion of his genetic code override all rationality, responding to her in a dance as old as time as they move together in the perfect synchronization that characterizes their every endeavor.

Soon they're both panting, her cheek pressed against the top of his head, her soft intermittent breaths overheating the already warm back of his neck as he muffles his grunts and calls of her name on her shoulder, their bodies slick, backs glistening with sweat as she falls over the edge. It hits him, in a sudden, out of place moment of clarity, that she's never been loud during sex, or any other activity, and it's so _her_, always determined to be undetected, unforeseen and under the radar, as well as probably shy (though he'd never say it to her, and she'd never admit it herself), that he wouldn't have it any other way. He soon follows her, his body overexerted, overheated and yet shivering with cold, his fever getting the better of him, and he feels his vision failing him, going in and out of focus as he powerlessly sags into her, releasing a frustrated breath through teeth clenched in pain, the endorphins in his bloodstream wearing off after a few minutes, the shivering increasing in its place. He feels her arms encircling him with care, cradling him against her, and he can sense the waves of worry radiating off of her when he should have been able to keep the world and its problems out of her mind, if only for a few minutes.

He's angry with himself, doesn't want to let his damaged body win this fight. After all they've accomplished, after surviving that infernal machine and saving two universes all he can do is sag weakly against the one person he wants to be strong for. And just like that it all catches up to him, crashes into him, leaving him raw and boneless and he can't help the tears that make their way down his cheeks, further adding to the dampness of her still heaving chest, and she's whispering in his ear, reassuring him, letting him unwind, holding him close as he's done for her so many times in the past, and she can't help but feel a piece of her heart breaking at the sight of this man, this inherently strong man, crying his eyes out on her chest, the weight of what he's done and not done finally falling on his shoulders. But she's there to help ease the burden, share it as he has shared hers in the past. He's been her rock, her pillar and anchor in the turbulent sea her life has become; she thinks it's only fair that it's her turn to be that for him, in the aftermath of chaos.

The tears subside after a while, though the fever does not, and she detaches his head from her body so she can look at him, his eyes drowsy, unfocused, drops of sweat falling from his forehead from his pain and their combined exercise. She lets his body be dragged back into the mattress by its weight, following it with her own as he rests limply on the sheets; she holds herself above him, urging him to try and move his tired body upwards so that he can lie properly on the bed instead of having his feet hang over edge. When he's settled himself, his head sinking into the pillows, hair matted to his forehead with the thin layer blood and grime and sweat, she brushes her fingers lightly over his chest, feeling his pulse under her hand as it slows down, though not as much as she would like, his sleepy, unfocused stare boring into her until she raises her eyes to his, a look conveying without words everything they want the other to hear but can't bring themselves to say out loud. They will say it, over time, perhaps in the morning when everything is clearer, their emotions tempered into an unbreakable steel, refined instead of raw and malleable as they are know, but for the moment, a look is more than enough, their eerie, silent communication skills more intimate and eloquent than anything that could come out of their mouths.

_I love you._

_

* * *

_

He turns his body towards her, leaning on his side, his eyes drinking the sight before him greedily as he manages to bring his legs to the side of the bed, sitting on the lateral edge of the mattress, bracing himself with his arms.

"Did no one ever tell you that it's rude to stare?" she asks, cutting through the invisible shroud of silence in the room, still looking out the window, a smile on her face and in her voice as she feels his stare wash over her, feeling slightly self-conscious of her nakedness. Not that he hadn't seen and felt it all many times before, but that was beside the point.

"Sorry, must have missed that class," he answers, and she turns towards him, joyful that he's finally his full self again, psychologically at least. As long as he can tease her she knows that he's still as partially sane as he has ever been. She flashes one her small smiles at him before she turns her attention back to the window, she must be watching the pedestrians on this city that never sleeps, he realizes.

He stands on wobbly feet, holds himself up with an arm against the wall as he makes a slow progression towards her, his eyes never leaving her until he reaches her, standing upright behind her as her hand snakes down to find his own, bringing it to her taut stomach and weaving his fingers with her own, holding him close as he hugs her properly.

Solitude is a sanctuary to her, at times, when the world overwhelms her, but she relishes in the fact that her solitude no longer obliges her into loneliness. He's there, with her, beside her, watching her back, holding her heart as she watches the people in the streets and the lights that blink in and out, never sleeping, always alert.

_Na einai kalyteros anthropos apo ton patera toy_

The words resonate in his head, a mantra of times past and things to come as he watches the woman in his arms.

He has a son, somewhere, maybe a universe over, and the knowledge that he'll be an absent father wounds him, but he has finally understood his mother's words, their significance, their meaning. His son's mother resembles this marvel he holds against him closely enough that he knows he'll be looked after, loved above all else, and it brings him a small measure of peace.

_Na einai kalyteros anthropos apo ton patera toy_

He still holds hope that he's made the right decision, honored his mother's memory, because he feels, here and now, with Olivia Dunham in his arms, that he has finally become a man better than his father ever was.

* * *

A/N: I updated this right after I saw Bloodline, so even though I'd put a daughter at the end she has been replaced by a son, as it is now cannon.


End file.
